Burgin Mayor Joe Monroe Resigns; City Gives First Reading To Budget
The Harrodsburg Herald/Robert Moore
Margie Brothers poses with Burgin Mayor Joe Monroe in a file image.
Robert Moore
Herald Staff
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Joe Monroe has resigned as the mayor of Burgin.
Members of the Burgin City Council were presented with Monroe’s resignation letter at their regular meeting on Tuesday, June 10.
In the letter, Monroe said he was resigning “due to health reasons requiring full attention,” which necessitated “stepping back from mayoral duties.” The mayor’s resignation is effective July 1.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Burgin City Attorney John Wood laid out the council’s options. Under state law, the council has 30 days to fill the vacancy. If the seat is still vacant, Gov. Andy Beshear can appointment of a qualified person a replacement. The board took no action on selecting Monroe’s replacement Tuesday night.
“We’re not going to take action tonight,” Councilwoman Melinda Wofford said.
The council will have to hold a special-called meeting to approve the 2026 budget before the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Wood said they would do the nominations and the vote at that special meeting.
He also said they could nominate someone to preside over the meeting. Joe said he would preside if it was his day off.
Monroe gave the council an update on efforts to alleviate flooding in Burgin. He said he’d met with the engineers and representatives from the state and federal government. Monroe said engineers from the University of Kentucky had located four caverns full of water. He said they would conduct a flow test at the mouth of the spring to see how much water the spring and creek can handle. After that, they will perform three or four test drills to see if they can pump out one of the caverns.
Just shy of 11 inches of rain fell on Mercer County between Thursday, April 3, and Monday, April 7, according to the Mercer County Sanitation District.
“It’s not the actual rainwater,” Monroe said. He said the groundwater cannot get out of the mouth of the cave fast enough. The mayor said they were trying to figure out where the caverns are.
“If they can pump those caverns out, that will allow the water to flow naturally,” Monroe said.
The current plan to ease flooding along Water Street and other sections of Burgin is to install two 30 inch pipes at least 150 feet under the city as well as pumps to control flooding
Monroe said pumping out at least one of the caverns below the friendly little city might be a better solution.
He said they were in the process of setting up a town hall meeting to show the public their findings.
Burgin has long relied on a sinkhole about a block away from city hall to drain the city. Monroe said the engineers believe cleaning out that sinkhole would be “a big mistake.”
“The rainwater is not causing the flooding,” he said Tuesday. “If we go in there and open it up, it’s going to come out of the ground ten times faster.
The mayor said the engineers want the water to flow naturally from the caverns on one side of the tracks to the other side.
“If you don’t get rid of that ground water, you’re wasting time doing anything else,” Monroe said.
In other business, the Burgin City Council gave first reading to a $1.7 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1.
The council reviewed a rough draft of the budget Tuesday night. Monroe said it had been revised to cover the areas where the city government were exceeded allocations the last time. There were new line items for alcohol and mowing as well as a new $5,000 line item for community outreach. The city also had to remove anything related to police except what’s paid to the MCSO.
A raise for city staff is included in the draft budget.
